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Good Shepherd Breaks Ground
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| architectural drawing of new church |
Money raised from the parish's Promise for Tomorrow capital campaign, which was initiated in 2003, as well as funding from Good Shepherd's Alive in Christ campaign have made it possible for the parish to accommodate more parishioners in a church building that is scheduled to be completed by Palm Sunday weekend 2013.
The current church building, which was dedicated in 1957, seats 500 people. The new building will have 14,000 square feet of space and accommodate 1,200 people. Other architectural features include a bell tower, adoration chapel, and an etched-glass wall separating the main sanctuary and the adoration chapel. The new altar will be double the size of the current altar, and the choir area will triple in size. The new church is being constructed on the site of the former parish office building, which was torn down in January.
Haitians Cling to Faith and Hope
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| People displaced by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti still have few basic necessities |
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti —More than two years after the devastating earthquake that ravaged major portions of Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010, progress is slowly but surely being made to rebuild schools, clinics and churches in the poverty-stricken country.
“There is progress going on in Port-au-Prince,” said Father Bernard Baris, M.S., pastor of Our Lady of the Cape Parish in Brewster. “Much of the mess has been cleaned up from the earthquake and they are rebuilding. There are some professional buildings going up; but of course 800,000 people are still living in tents and in abominable situations without heat, water and other facilities.”
“The government is trying to clean up major refugee camps, but hundreds of thousands of people are still living in tents and without proper shelter,” agreed Missionhurst Father Andrew Labatorio. “The living conditions in camps are becoming intolerable and inhumane. Violence and undocumented rapes are becoming an everyday occurrence.”
A Revised La Salette Vision
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| The Weeping Mother, Our l,ady of La Salette |
So it is with the La Salette Missionaries. Every six years they gather in a General Chapter meeting. The purposes of this chapter are:
- to examine the spiritual and temporal condition of the La Salette Congregation
- to give the opportunity for the Congregation as a whole periodically to take account of itself and its mission
- to adapt itself to the times in order better to answer to the needs of the world
- to assure that it will make the best use of the means at its disposal and to affirm its unity. (La Salette Rule, 195C).
Protecting The Least of These
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| Bp. Richard E. Pates of Iowa, at groundbreaking for an expansion of Catholic Charities' homeless shelter in Des Moines |
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| Bp. Stephen E. Blaire of California greeting members of his congregation after Mass |
On April 4, Bishop Blaire cautioned that “at a time when the need for assistance from [affordable housing] programs is growing, cutting funds for them could cause thousands of individuals and families to lose their housing and worsen the hardship of thousands more in need of affordable housing.” He also reminded Congress that the Catholic community is one of the largest private, nonprofit providers of affordable housing in the country and is deeply involved in meeting the health housing and nutrition needs of families across the nation.
Bishops Blaire and Pates reaffirmed the “moral criteria to guide these difficult budget decisions” outlined in their March 6 budget letter:
Memories of Brewster, MA
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| First La Salette Residence in North America on Collins Street in Hartford, CT |
We have built or used various buildings, some old mansions that could easily accommodate our many priests and seminarians. In fact, many of our properties included farmland that we worked daily to help us sustain ourselves during the bleakest days of the Great Depression.
One splendid property that brings back wonderful memories to many La Salettes and alumni is our seacoast property on Cape Cod at Brewster, MA. Recently I received an email from Loretta Sauvé Chrystie. Her uncle was Fr. René Sauvé, M.S., the founder and first Superior at La Salette in Attleboro, MA. He was also the caretaker at the Brewster Retreat House before it was sold.
She told me that her cousin, René Caissey, was a 1962 graduate of La Salette and her aunt, Germaine Sauvé, was a La Salette Sister in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. René Caissey left the priesthood and her aunt and uncle are both deceased. They were from Fitchburg, Massachusetts. It was a family of 13 with only one aunt remaining at age 95. Her dad, Roland N. Sauvé, was a carpenter and helped build parts of the Attleboro Shrine. He actually helped conceive and design the Rosary Walk around the pond.
A Past Victory Won
Editor: With the political, social, economic and even religious unrest so prevalent in countries like Argentina, Angola, Madagascar where our Missionaries minister, it is uplifting to get some good news. Fr. Norman Butler brings us a story about a victory won.Zacarias Loza is a catechist and local leader for his mountain community called ‘La Pampa.” He has been struggling to get a high school — four medium size classrooms and an administrator’s office — for his abandoned district. As the year 2000 began, the mayor promised Zacarias and his community that he would get money for this project from a national government agency. By June nothing had been done. To start school in February 2001 — the school year here begins in February — he borrowed a rundown and abandoned house. Since there was no roof, he also borrowed some corrugated tin sheets to cover the building. Desks were also borrowed. Conditions were not the best, but school began.
Fascinating Bolivia
Just over a century ago, a diplomatic crisis was brewing in La Paz, Bolivia, over a glass of chica, a native drink. The new British ambassador to Bolivia had made the mistake of staring at this local drink when served by the incumbent dictator. As a punishment, he was forced to drink a barrelful of chocolate and be led through the streets of the capital strapped to a donkey. When news reached London, Queen Victoria was not amused. She demanded a map of South America, drew an “x” though the country and declared, “Bolivia does not exist.” 
Bolivian students CochabambaBolivia remains one of the least known of all South American countries. It is a place of natural heights and boasts the world’s highest capital city and the highest commercial airport. The country is often referred to as the Nepal of South America. I was very impressed with its majestic mountain scenery. Bolivia has a population of 10 million people. Its population can be roughly divided into three distinct ethnic groupings: about 60% are indigenous; about one third is people of mixed European and Indian ancestry and the rest are of European origin.
From USAF Colonel To Immigration Specialist
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| Fr. Robert Ippolito, M.S., (right) with Bp. Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Raleigh |
As a La Salette priest for 39 years, I have preached each year on the gospel passage from Matthew 5:3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” but now I know why these words are so challenging to defend and so central to our faith.
As Pope Benedict in this year’s Lenten message states: “Christians can… express their membership in the one body which is the Church through concrete concern for the poorest of the poor… Our hearts should never be so wrapped up in our affairs and problems that they fail to hear the cry of the poor.” In fact, this concern for the poor was expressed well with Our Lady’s concern for the lives of the two young witnesses of her Apparition at La Salette and her ongoing call to make her message known to all her people.
Hello, Dolly
Psychologists tell us that children playing with dolls is a very healthy activity. Children can act out the caring and love that is the center of life. Fr. Bernie Baris, M.S., knew full-well that, in his many trips to the Catholic Parish in Dessalines to which his own parish of Our Lady of the Cape in Brewster, MA., is twinned, the children would probably love any kind of dolls, but especially ones that had the same brown skin that they had.Sure enough, in his last trip with some parishioners and friends to their twinned parish in Haiti in February of this year, he found out that he was indeed correct! As soon as he and his helpers unpacked the six hundred dolls for the many children in the parish school of St. Claire’s in Dessalines in the west-central part of rural Haiti, the children’s eyes opened wide, smiles broke out and hands reached out for their very own – and perhaps their first – doll.
Argentina – A Missionary’s View
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| Fr. Jack Garvey, M.S., missionary in Argentina |
Argentina is the second largest country in South America – with Brazil being the largest. It measures 2,300 miles from North to South, and, at its widest point from East to West, 800 miles, or a total area roughly equivalent to the United States east of the Mississippi plus Iowa and California. It has a wide variety of climates. At its southernmost tip, Cape Horn, reaches toward the cold waters of the Antarctic, and in the north it embraces the subtropical slopes of the Bolivian Andes.
Outside of Buenos Aires, the Capital City, Argentina is an agricultural nation. Its agricultural heartland is the Pampa, which comprise about 250,000 square miles radiating in a semicircle south of the Capital. Upon its pastures graze more then sixty per cent of the country’s cattle, its fields yield more than 80% of all the corn and wheat produced in the country. With its abundant black soil free of stones and with wild lush grass that grows high, the Pampa is a planter’s and stockman’s paradise. This is the wealthy and productive region of Argentina’s agriculture.